HOLY SHIT: Is The Dark Knight Better Than We’re Expecting It To Be?

I’m pretty sure I need a new pair of boxers. Moriarty from AICN has seen THE DARK KNIGHT and by the sounds of it the movie should really be called “BATMAN: WHEN BAD THINGS HAPPEN TO GOOD PEOPLE. (BEWARE OF SPOILERS TOWARDS THE END)

No one escapes this movie without fresh scars. No one gets out without losing something dear to them. If Warner Bros. wanted to title this like the first film, they could have called it BATMAN FAILS, because no matter what he does in this film, he finds himself unable to stem the overflow of shit that threatens his city.

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Each time things get worse, all he can do is adjust and try to move on from there, until it finally reaches a point where he isn’t sure there’s any way to adjust anymore. What do you do when every good effort has failed and every good man has been cut down? When chaos and darkness overwhelm you, and even a clear-cut hero can be corrupted, is there any point in even continuing the fight?

I’m not sure kids under 14 or 15 should see this film. For one thing, they won’t understand a lot of it. I don’t think moral ambiguity is one of the things kids look for in their movies. For another thing, the parts they do understand will probably scare the shit out of them. This movie pushed the PG-13 to the breaking point, and I’m not sure how Warner Bros. pulled it off.

This was exactly the kind of movie I was hoping for. Batman Begins did a great job of establishing the groundwork for a modernized more realistic franchise. Now it’s time to explore the disturbing world that Batman inhabits. The problem with Batman is that most people have a comic, almost cartoonish, understanding of the character. Its sort of like the clean cut Kevin Sorbo version of Hercules compared to the raging drunk and wife beater that he really was. This caricature largely created by the Hollywood glamorization of Batman during the 90’s which omitted the disturbing details that would frighten people and dare I say, make them think.

But in Nolan’s re imagining we get to experience a dose of reality. Not in the sense that people really dress up in leather bat costumes, but in the sense that doing the right thing often results in bad personal misfortune for yourself and the ones you love.